Rico G. Monge

Rico G. Monge is a member of the faculty of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego. He specializes in comparative theology, the history of Christian thought (Eastern and Western), Christian and Islamic mysticism and asceticism, and religion and literature/film. Prior to his doctoral studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara, he obtained his M.Div. from St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York. He is an ordained minister (deacon) in the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.

Posts by Rico G. Monge

October 18, 2013

I heartily welcome Reverberations’s new prayer portal, “Praying With The Senses,” as it not only tackles significant issues in the study of prayer from a variety of methodological angles, but it also brings much needed attention to that which continues to be a significant lacuna in religious studies—namely, the distinctive characteristics of various expressions of Eastern Christian faith and practice.

Sonja Luehrmann’s curatorial introduction highlights a number of the distinctive factors that affect “the efficacy of prayer” in Eastern Christianity. Many of these factors reveal how the Eastern Christian traditions are fraught with tension between formal regulations prescribed by ecclesiastical authority and the ambiguities and “judgment calls” that confront the individual believer in actual practice.